Seven senior Hells Angels are behind bars in British Columbia, following a weekend raid at a Kelowna clubhouse that netted police $4 million in alleged drug money, along with several handguns and assault weapons.

David Giles, vice-president of the Kelowna Hells Angels who was acquitted of drug charges four years ago, was among those arrested in what police say is a “significant milestone” in their ongoing battle to break the outlaw biker gang.

Giles, along with co-accused Kevin Van Kalkeran, Michael Redd and James Howard, made their first appearance in B.C. Supreme Court Monday. A direct indictment, filed last Friday, alleges the four men conspired to import and traffic 500 kilograms of cocaine from last September to Aug. 25 of this year.

Another three men appeared in B.C. Provincial Court, charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking in connection with the raid. A fourth, Brian Oldham, remains at large with a Canada-wide warrant issued for his arrest.

“This is a major hit on the Hells Angels,” said Darryl Plecas, RCMP university research chair in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Fraser Valley. “I’m surprised it happened because it’s so difficult ... they’re so insulated. It’s just a sign of how much better police are getting at attacking these gangsters.”

The raid came after a 21-month-long RCMP investigation, dubbed E-Predicate, which began in the Okanagan and stretched to the U.S. to Mexico and Panama. The investigation focused on allegations that marijuana was being produced in B.C.’s southeast district and trafficked in B.C. and elsewhere to fund the importation of cocaine to Canada.

Crown prosecutors say the investigation uncovered 500 kg of cocaine estimated to be worth $15 million and involved a “number of intercepted phone calls.” A reverse sting also uncovered the $4 million in cash.

Plecas said the arrests are a sign of things to come as police continue to hone their intelligence and surveillance systems. If Giles and the other three are convicted, he said, they face life sentences, while the other four would spend a significant time in jail.

“It’s really a major coup,” he said, adding it is also a lesson to other groups who might want to take over. “If police had it together to bust this level of insulation and sophistication they certainly aren’t going to have a tough time doing it with a lesser group.”

Supt. Brian Cantera said police used a “full arsenal of police techniques,” including undercover officers at international locations and the use of video surveillance to collect the evidence. The effort, he said, “exceeded every layer of sophistication the accused attempted to employ to escape prosecution.”

At a press conference in Vancouver, the Mounties showed off a stash of plastic bags stacked with $20, $50 and $100 bills, along with a handgun and Thompson “Tommy” sub-machine gun. A Hells Angels Kelowna patch was also displayed, along with a sign that read: “Watch what you say in this clubhouse, the walls have ears.”

“While we suspect this case is far from over it represents a significant milestone,” Wayne Rideout, Asst. Commissioner of the RCMP, said at the news conference. “This money would have supplied and fuelled illegal activities and violence.”

Police said Giles, who was arrested at a Burnaby casino on the weekend, appeared cordial.

But he and his three co-accused, dressed in street clothes, were solemn as they appeared 45 minutes late for the court hearing after being stuck in traffic with the sheriffs transporting them.

Dressed in a black shirt with a skull on the front, Giles sat motionless, except when he stood to ask a sheriff about speaking with the spectators. When he was told he couldn’t, a sullen-looking Giles motioned to two people to come closer, but the middle-aged man and younger woman refused.

After the hearing the two declined to speak with the media and covered their faces as they fled a television cameraman filming them outside the courthouse.

The other three accused, dressed in T-shirts and board shorts and looking as if they had just come from the beach, sat away from Giles with their heads bowed for most of the hearing. None of them spoke.

All four men are slated to reappear before the court next Wednesday. The Crown also wants to add the other three — Organ Saydam, Murray Trekofski, Shawn Womacks — to the direct indictment, which would allow them to go directly to trial in B.C. Supreme Court.

Cantera said the evidence is a “stark reminder of what marijuana plays in the international drug trade and the influx of drugs like cocaine in B.C.”

But it also highlights the RCMP’s international reach in pursuit of evidence against organized crime groups, which Mounties say have no respect for municipal, national or international borders. RCMP officers are stationed around the world to target crime and strengthen police efforts in B.C.

“This type of activity is not unusual,” Rideout said. “It is this trade and this activity, whether it’s the trade of commodities or pursuit of commodities, that drives the violence. There’s a great deal of this activity out there. We’re looking at who’s driving it and the violence and targeting to go after those people.

“These individuals represent a public safety threat in my view. There is a focus on organized crime groups and the violence that flows through from these groups.”

Police wouldn’t divulge details of the investigation, saying they don’t want to jeopardize what is expected to be a complex and lengthy trial.

But Cantera said he was hopeful there would be enough evidence to support a prosecution, saying the phone interceptions and evidence is of a higher quality than the last time Giles was arrested.

Giles, who had been a senior member of the East End chapter of the Hells Angels, was acquitted of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking in 2008 after the judge found evidence against the biker was “weak” and intercepted communications were “unreliable” because they were difficult to hear.

The acquittal also meant the end of the first test case, arising from $10-million police investigation code-named Project E-Pandora, in which police and prosecutors sought to have East End Hells Angels labelled a criminal organization. The Hells Angels have always maintained it is just a motorcycle club.

At the time, police said Giles was a “high priority” for the RCMP and remains a suspect in the 2001 seizure of a two-tonne shipment of cocaine headed to B.C. aboard a vessel named the Western Wind, which was intercepted by authorities in Washington state. No one was ever charged.

Meanwhile, two others Hells Angels, David Roger Revell, 43, and Richard Andrew Rempel, 24, were convicted in 2008 on charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking cocaine.

Last year, Canada’s highest court last year dismissed an application for leave to appeal by John Virgil Punko, a member of Vancouver’s East End Hells Angels, who was seeking to appeal his sentence related to drug trafficking and possessing proceeds of crime.

Punko, who pleaded guilty to the offences, was sentenced on March 12, 2010 to three concurrent terms of 14 months imprisonment for conspiracy to produce and traffic methamphetamine, trafficking cocaine and possession of more than $100,000 cash deemed proceeds of crime.

He and Randy Richard Potts were convicted after being charged in 2005 in Project E-Pandora.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Video

Best of Postmedia

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Ignore the diversions in the United States: athletes kneeling or standing during the national anthem; Republicans flailing and failing again on health care; a kick-boxing creationist possibly becoming senator from Alabama. Calamity looms elsewhere. We are hurtling toward war with North Korea. It may be as early as next month. […]

It wasn’t in the middle of a farmer’s muddy field or deep in the boreal forest where the Canadian oilsands truly struck pay dirt. It was inside Fort McMurray’s recreation centre. More than 1,400 oilpatch workers, corporate executives, provincial leaders and the country’s prime minister assembled 21 years ago in northern Alberta to grasp a […]

Google’s powerful search engine is defeating some court-ordered publication bans in Canada and undermining efforts to protect young offenders and victims. Computer experts believe it’s an unintended, “mind-boggling” consequence of Google search algorithms. In six high-profile cases documented by the Citizen, searching the name of a young offender or victim online pointed to media coverage […]

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.